Dr. Vijayalayan's Literature Notes

    Introduction       Modernism is a blanket term that refers to a wide variety of international movements, which took place in the arts starting from the closing years of the 19 th century till the culmination of the second world war. Some prominent movements in this regard include symbolism, imagism, surrealism, expressionism and impressionism. Though all modernist movements were unique in their own ways, a common denominator that united them was that they were all avantgarde in scope. This is to say, they exhibited a strong reactionary stance against traditional forms and methods of producing art, in favour of new and experimental means of artistic creation. The years between the two world wars is generally regarded as the high point of modernism.   Causal Factors       Many factors contributed to the development of modernism. Among these four conceptual factors are particularly noteworthy. These are the theory of...

  Preamble       Romantic revival denotes a literary movement in which romanticism reasserted itself as the dominant trend in English literature again, after playing second fiddle to classicism during the neoclassical movement. The publication of the anthology Lyrical Ballads containing poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge is generally recognized as marking the formal inauguration of the movement in the literature of England, and 1850 the year of the former’s death is widely considered as indicating its conclusion. With the dominant trend shifting from classicism to romanticism, it is notable that the literatures produced during the romantic revival marked a distinct contrast from those of the neoclassical movement. It is also noteworthy that the influence of classical texts and the ideas manifested in them, which remained influential during both the renaissance and the neoclassical movement, lost their appeal in the romantic revival.   Causes  ...

  Preamble       In the literature of England, there are basically two trends to reckon with. These are classicism and romanticism. The established pattern is that in every epoch of English literary history, one of these two trends emerges as a dominant force by which the literature of that age comes to be defined. The difference between the two trends could be understood in the most basic terms as follows. Classicism as a trend can be said to uphold ideals such as order, norms, and critical sensibility as the seminal characteristics to be sought for, while romanticism as promoting ideals such as freedom, unconventionality and imagination. During the renaissance in England, it was the romantic trend that dominated as the major force in the writing of literature. This situation however changed after the renaissance came to its formal conclusion, with classicism taking over as the dominant trend. This change over from romanticism to classicism as the main tren...

  Background       The millennium starting from roughly the 5th century B. C., during which European civilization was dominated by the Greeks followed by the Romans, is generally known as the era of classical antiquity. This period exemplifies a significant chapter in the annals of western civilization in that it marked a phase of sustained intellectual and artistic progress. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century A. D., this glorious epoch of Greeco-Roman scholarship drew to a close, casting Europe into a lengthy phase of intellectual dearth known as the dark ages. During the dark ages, it was generally supposed that the texts containing the progressive ideas of classical antiquity, were destroyed by the barbarians. This belief however turned out to be fortunately false, for as it emerged later those texts were found to be preserved in the many libraries of the Byzantine empire. Thus, while western Europe was languishing in ignorance all throu...